


In Which Gordon And Benrey Are Trapped In A Room Together

by bennybonny



Series: HLVRAI fics [1]
Category: Half Life VR But The AI Is Self Aware
Genre: Benrey Puts A Pair Of Scissors In A Microwave, Caliginous Romance, Canon-Typical Violence, Classic Black Mesa Puzzle Shenanigans, Coming In Pants, Cryptids, Cuddles, Eldritch, Hate Sex, Literally Hours Of Stupid Games, M/M, Mild Fluff, Mutual Pining, Pretend This Happened While The Plot Wasn’t Looking, Roughhousing, Surreal, they stuck in da break room together thats it thats the fic, unhinged gay shit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-09
Updated: 2020-12-15
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:47:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 15,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27857778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bennybonny/pseuds/bennybonny
Summary: Freeman turns to the eldritch abomination and sighs. "Okay. Okay. So - if we're stuck in here together - we might as well play something to pass the time. A game.""nice," Benrey says. "I love   playing games."(alternatively: The One In Which Benrey And Gordon Get Stuck In A Room And Need To Work Together In Order To Escape!)(also: they fuck)
Relationships: Benrey/Gordon Freeman
Series: HLVRAI fics [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2048831
Comments: 103
Kudos: 282





	1. Chapter 1

In the depths of Black Mesa are a thousand cold corridors, a thousand puzzles, a thousand backrooms. A chiliad chambers and checkpoints. A labyrinth. A maze.

And down past all these laboratories with their morally dubious experiments - in the middle of the alien apocalypse - there is a break-room that looks absolutely identical to all the other break-rooms. Anticlimactically, here it is: table, microwave, soda-machines. That's basically it. That's easy enough to remember, right? But although it looks completely average, there _is_ something special about this break-room. Because if you look closer, sticky-taped to the top of the noteboard is a mysterious note that reads, in title font, _'Green Room'._

This name is a bit of a mystery, because the break-room isn't specifically _painted_ _green_ or anything.

_Bonk._

_Bonk._

The room is also unique in that it has a massive industrial door blocking the exit. Solid steel. A foot thick. Locked down. This is the room Doctor Freeman finds himself locked inside, and as he sits at the table resting his forehead against the cool plastic tabletop, his glasses dangling limply from one hand, he expresses his feelings for this situation.

He lifts his head. He lets it fall.

_Bonk._

Across the room from him Benrey sits up on the countertop like an asshole. He casually pops the tab on a can of Sunkist and sips it long and loud just to get on Freeman's nerves, and the thing is? It works. Freeman hates the slurping noise so much that he quits hitting his head against the table and looks up to glare at the other guy. His eyes are bloodshot and bleary. There's a fading red mark in the middle of his forehead: testament to half-an-hour of self-flagellation.

"Don't drink that," Freeman says.

"huh?"

"Don't drink the soda, man, you're gonna - you're gonna need to pee, later. Do you see a toilet in here?"

Benrey slurps his soda obnoxiously, ignoring him.

"Seriously? I don't-"

Slurp.

"-I don't want to be-"

Shluurp.

"-to be trapped in here with a puddle of stinking- _oh_ my _god_ , _stop."_

The following hog-noises are the equivalent of listening to a vacuum cleaner trying to suck up mud. Wet, disgusting, and futile. Freeman lets his head fall back onto the table with a

_Bonk._

The scientists are probably having fun, at least. They're probably having all sorts of adventures, battling all sorts of beasts. Bubby, Coomer, and Tommy. Freeman envies them - they're probably knee deep in puzzle shit, is probably what's happening - but Freeman envies them nevertheless. Because _god_ , he'd battle all the bitbeasts in the world, and it would be better than this, this situation: being trapped in a room with his most annoying colleague. It's enough to drive a man to murder. Literally. He'd literally kill for a little peace and quiet, and it'd be _so damn easy_. Just whip out his machine-gun prosthetic and pepper that eldritch abomination of a ‘security guard’ full of a thousand holes, until he's more bullet-hole than body.

But that's the problem right there. That word. 'Eldritch'. How do you kill something that won't stay dead?

_Bonk._

_B-_

Freeman stops to contemplate it, and the table is cool against his abused forehead. But then again, maybe 'eldritch' is the wrong word. It implies something bigger, like a god, or a demon. Is the quote unquote ‘security guard’ a _god?_ Hell no. He's just an undying bastard, a glorified zombie, basically. He's not a god he's just - some guy who likes video games. Right?

But sometimes.

When Benrey drops his head, and the shadow swallows his eyes-

Speak of the devil: he looks across suddenly, and Doctor Freeman flinches.

"hey. wanna fuck?"

The question takes a second to click, but it hits him like a truck when it does. " _Wow_ Romeo, fuckin' _buy me dinner first?_ How bored are you?"

The other guy just groans and tips his head back to stare at the ceiling. Mumbles something. And yeah, okay, so Freeman's bored too. He peels his raw forehead off the table and puts his glasses back on. His gaze lingers idly in the exposed line of Benrey's throat, on his adam's apple, on the slight hollow beneath. It looks so human. Freeman swallows, hard, and feels like Juliet.

"wanna?"

"No! I hate you! I'm not _that_ bored yet."

"not yet?"

The other guy makes a disappointed sound with his Black Mesa Sweet Voice. Anyway. The point is, killing him wouldn't work. Wouldn't matter. He always comes back. Freeman drags his hand down his face and peeks dead-eyed through his fingers. What else can they do, except wait for rescue? And they could be waiting a while, the scientists could be _ages._

Hours, even.

Freeman turns to the eldritch abomination and sighs. "Okay. Okay. So - if we're stuck in here together - we might as well play something to pass the time. A game."

"nice," Benrey says. "I love playing games."

"Me too, man."

And it's not a lie: Freeman also loves games. He hates losing but he loves games.

Behind the scenes of the Black Mesa facility, in one of the thousands of identical backrooms, Freeman plays a game with the ‘security guard’. They agree on I Spy. It's a classic. The room is limited - table, microwave, soda-machines - everything all present and accounted for, tick everybody off the list. Easy enough to remember, right? But simplicity is deceptive, and neither of them notice anything suspicious or strange about the break-room. Neither of them suspect that the superficial minimalism hides a deeper mystery. 

Freeman loves games. Winning them, anyway.

"I'll go first." Doctor Freeman starts them off. "I Spy, with my little eye-"

"hey, why the fuck? why do you go first?"

"Just because."

"you always get to go first though it's not _fair."_

"I don't, but fine, whatever! You can go first. Asshole."

The security guy pauses for a thousand years to make his choice, and slurps his soda. "I spy, with my little eye, something... g."

"Geh?"

"g."

Not the worst letter of the alphabet, at least. "Glass," Freeman guesses. There's glass in the soda-machines.

"no."

"Ground?"

"no."

"Hmmm." Freeman looks around, and then it clicks. "Holy shit I'm an idiot - Gordon Freeman!"

The security guard pauses for way, way too long. He freezes. The soda stops mid-air. He turns his head to the side slightly, like he's giving the room a second look, and when he turns back again, his face is a perfectly impassive mask. Like a sculpture. Like something modelled from clay. It is a thousand years before he answers.

"wrong."

"It fucking is."

"no."

"It fucking is, it's me, don't change it now."

"um. you're wrong."

"Fuck you."

"sorry bro, you're wrong." The security guard fixes Freeman with that blank look. "it was... _Green Room."_

_"What?"_

"on the note sign thing, it's written on the wall obviously. it's so obvious I don't know," he says, shaking his head in sheer disappointment. "how'd you missed it?"

"How'd I-?"

Gordon looks. It's actually there. Sticky-taped to the top of the noteboard is a mysterious note that reads, in title font, _'Green Room'._ Why is it there? Just to torment him? This particular break-room isn't _painted green_ or anything. It looks absolutely identical to all the thousands of other break-rooms, nothing special about it. Right?

Fun fact number one: in theatre, the term 'Green Room' refers to a space where the actors wait before, after, and during a performance, where they wait when they're not onstage. It usually has comfortable seating. Lounges, and things. The actors sit down in the green room to have a glass of water and a conversation with their cast-members. In costume, but not in character. Nobody's really certain why this little backstage space is called a 'Green Room'. Perhaps, such rooms were typically painted green, and the name stuck. 

"You were _not_ thinking of that the whole time."

"was too."

_"Liar."_

"no. can you read minds? no? I win."

 _"Gordon Freeman,_ that's what you were thinking."

Benrey smacks his lips. "um pretty self centred of you? can youu read minds? can you? guess what I'm thinking of right now. guess."

"Me."

"no. I was thinking about Green Rooms."

"Ughh I don't _believe you."_

"can you: read minds? can you telepath what I am thinking, no you can't? I win."

It's pathetic, but it kinda makes Freeman want to cry. He loves to play, but he hates to lose, and he hates when people don't play fair. He slouches in his chair like a petty child, and so perhaps his retaliation is a bit childish. Perhaps a bit mean. But he's genuinely upset, and anyway, _he_ started it.

Here's the thing: from Benrey's position, from where he is sitting next to the microwave, he can't see into the back corner above the soda-machines. It's a blind spot. He can't see the pigeon, hidden behind the wall. How did a pigeon get in here? It doesn't really matter - it's got maybe too many eyes, maybe a bit mutated - but it's a live pigeon, and that's what counts. Is it fair to pick something that the other guy can't Spy? Maybe not.

Anger smooths away all of Freeman's moral indecision. "My turn. I Spy, with my little eye, something beginning with 'P'."

"haha pee?"

"No."

The security guard looks over at the soda-machine. He can't see the pigeon in the back, in the blind spot. "pepsie?"

"No."

"pppGreen Room?"

"No. You'll never guess."

"puss-"

And he might've kept guessing forever, except that the 'P' for Pigeon decides that this, right here, is the perfect moment to enter the wider world.

She flies out of the blind spot like the most graceful falcon, sweeping her wings down to alight on the table like an angel delivering a divine message. In this case, the holy message is 'fuck cheaters'. And this little bastard pigeon, this ruiner of games, has the audacity to coo at Freeman in a friendly way. All her mutated eyes sparkle like a shoujo princess. Freeman fumes. _It's not fair!_

Distantly, the security guard is laughing his ass off. 

"Fuck you," Freeman says, conversationally, and shoots the pigeon off the table. There's a sad little thump.

This makes Benrey crack up even harder, for some reason, and he laughs so hard he chokes. He hacks. He coughs up a lung. He falls off the countertop, and Freeman hears a grisly wet _'crack!'_ just as his neck twists. And at the same time his voice goes dead with a harsh inhuman burst of static, and his blank, mask-like expression freezes in sudden inertia.

"Did you just." Freeman blinks at the body on the floor. "Did you just _laugh yourself to death?"_

Silence. There is no reply, because the eldritch security guard has just laughed himself to death.

Wow! The End, apparently!

The simulation is over. Peace at last. To celebrate, Freeman lets his head fall onto the table with one last, final

_Bonk._

And he has a nap.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> jk it's not the end lol. now we earn our mature rating, bring on the surreal gay shit baybee!!!!

Freeman dreams in bursts: in stolen moments of unconsciousness, in five-minute naps, speedrunning sleep. And here's an interesting little factoid! Only in his dreams does Benrey ever smile. 

In one strange dream he's back at college, in the next he's at a coffee shop. And always the dream version of the 'security guard', he cackles and grins, and his snaggletooth canines are dull and blunt. The dream version of Benrey is silly and annoying and he drives Freeman crazy 'til he snaps - but it's never anything truly cruel. His dream guy? The one in his fantasies? He's harmless, and nice, and he's basically _everything the real thing isn't._

Most of the time.

Because recently, Doctor Freeman has been having a recurring nightmare:

Here's how it starts - he's in a maze, or a labyrinth. The long corridors twist and turn, and the darkness is absolute. It reminds him a little of Black Mesa, almost, or a mausoleum, or a temple. Stone concrete, stone cold. And here's how the nightmare ends - the monster finds him. It's a giant. It's incomprehensible. It takes him firmly by the arm and leads him gently deeper into the centre of the maze. And it is there, in the heart of the labyrinth, that the monster swallows him whole. It eats him alive.

* * *

Naturally, Freeman is never really well-rested after waking. Stands to reason, after being eaten alive. He wakes with a jerk, sitting up in his chair, and jumps into groggy action as a distraction from the bad dreams. He has a go at the mysterious stains on the floor with a scrubbing rag. He wipes out the microwave, because what the hell, it's something to do. And as he does, he discovers a _secret cupboard._ Well. Not so much secret as 'hard to see'. It's in another blind spot, kind of. But anyway, there's a cupboard under the microwave counter, and this would be amazing if it wasn't fucking locked.

Now, in no way is this a _coincidence_. This for sure puzzle bullshit, because since when is anything at Black Mesa ever simple? There's a key somewhere in this room: no doubt about it. Freeman just has to find it, which he spends fifteen minutes trying to do without any luck.

He looks away just for a moment. As soon as he does, he hears the _click-hiss-sh_ of somebody opening a can of soda. And when he turns around, Benrey is back from the dead and sitting on the countertop beside the microwave. Like he never left. Gordon's first reaction is incomprehensible, genuine elation. His second reaction is more along the lines of _'fuck me, he's back'._

"um you're not supposed to be in here."

"I know. I know." Freeman gives him a half-hearted wave. Takes off his glasses, cleans the lenses, puts them back on. "So - you seen a key around?"

Benrey slurp his soda.

"I'm an idiot, of course, why would you help me?"

The security guard watches him. The way he stares - it looks placid enough, but you can tell there's something ticking away behind the blankness of those eyes.

"hey," he says.

"What."

"wanna bang?"

"What?" It clicks. _"No!_ I'm nowhere near bored enough. Quit _asking_ me that."

"not yet?"

"Man, I got puzzle shit to solve - keys to find - leave me alone, okay?"

Fun fact number two: these Black Mesa backrooms, they're built to code, they all look the same. It's a pity the facility code isn't exactly sane. And so: while all of these backrooms look superficially identical to to all the thousands of other backrooms - some of them sometimes have a bit of that Black Mesa spice built-in. Two words, baby. 'Puzzle bullshit'. Think about the Pita Cutter room, the skull grinding factory, the hydraulic press walkways. If it's not torturously elaborate? Black Mesa wants nothing to do with it. 

Gordon runs through their mazes, though. He's the lab-rat, he does their puzzles for them. Switches and portals and secret cupboards, oh my. He can find a single key, surely.

The other guy watches him search. "...you lose?"

"What?"

"what cha _lose?"_

"I didn't lose _anything_ , I'm searching for the key to - to that cupboard, under there, in the blind spot."

Benrey looks down over the side of the counter. "oh noooo you lost the key to the _cup board,_ I can't believe it! that's why we're stuck in here because of _you."_

"It's - what? - it's a _puzzle,_ man. It's a hidden key."

"why'd you hide it? you tryin a uhhh _steal?"_

 _"No!_ What the fuck oh my god."

The security guard puts his soda down, and braces his hands either side of his butt. He levers himself up off the countertop for a second.

"hmm 'm not sittin on it. cross that one off the check. what's the plan? gonna collect all the keycards? open up the _secret safe?"_

Freeman sighs. "Yep, that's it. That's the plan."

And see, this is the frustrating thing:

Because most of the time? Benrey's the reason Freeman's at his breaking point. Most of the time? He's the last straw on a metaphorical haystack of 'last straws'. He's got Gordon mentally filing the resignation paperwork, filing his grievances, ticking the complaint box marked 'colleagues'. _That_ colleague. _That_ person. For given value of person, anyway - as much as an eldritch security guard is a person. He's usually about as human as a knife, or poison.

But every now and again there's a moment like this: Benrey holding up his empty soda can, rattling it hopefully, just in case the key has miraculously manifested inside.

It's funny. These moments, when Benrey is nice to him? Gordon gets _really pissed off._

He's got no idea why. Why does irritation make his HEV suit feel _tight?_ Gordon tugs at the crotch of it, itchy and hot. Because this is the frustrating thing, right, this is what pisses him off, right down to the bottom of his gut: the fact that it's a _genuinely nice gesture,_ and the reminder that Benrey might be, deep down, a _genuinely nice guy._ It makes hating him so much more inconvenient.

"found it."

"Where was it?" Freeman asks, sharply. It's not a competition - but it feels too much like losing, that the other guy found the key first.

"key number one under the microwave. bro you didn't check here."

"Lay off. I suck at the puzzle shit, all right?"

"you can say you just forgot where you lost it, I won't tell anybody, promise. lips zipped. our secret."

"Just pass it here, asshole."

The other guy flicks the key at him without changing his bored expression, and Freeman catches it in the palm of his hand. The metal ridges bite in hard. His whole body thrills with an exhausted kind of exhilaration, a shivery energy buzzing underneath his skin, fragile as a soap bubble. He's got a key. And it's a nice gesture, and it shouldn't piss him off so much, but it does, it does. It really does.

"I need you to move." Gordon says.

Benrey looks at him with an air of disapproval, and doesn't budge. What does he want? Please and thank you? He's in the way: his legs are directly blocking access to the locked cabinet under the microwave, under the counter.

And he tilts his helmet, and the shadows under the brim swallow his eyes, and only in darkness those empty sockets-

Freeman shudders. It's not fear.

"C'mon. Move."

"you didn't say please or thank you?"

"We don't. Have time for this."

"yeah? no. say please?"

"Fuck you. From the bottom of my soul."

The security guy stubbornly crosses one leg over the other with a completely blank face. Completely bored. And that pisses off Gordon more than anything else: the impression he's not being listened to. He tries to smile but it comes out as more of an unhinged grimace. Does the security guy flinch? Does he hell. Not a muscle moves on his face, not a flicker. What is that expression? Vaguely unimpressed? Smug disappointment?

Freeman shudders, right down to the bottom of his gut. It drives him crazy, not knowing. Without realising it he leans in. He puts his hands on the countertop either side of Benrey's legs: flesh on the left, prosthetic on the right. And without realising it, Freeman traps Benrey in place. 

_"Move,"_ he growls, even though he's got Benrey pinned. He doesn't realise. He's seething, unseeing - he's _blind_ with rage.

"move please?"

"I need to get underneath you."

He means the cupboard under the microwave-counter, but Benrey snorts at him, for some reason. "not yet? not 'til you say please? this escape room needs double co-op. two player system."

"Move or I'll _fuckin'_ kill you."

"say please? do it. kill me. try it. dare you. take me out, bro, you better not miss."

_"Nngh."_

Freeman keeps eye-contact. It's a stupid dominance challenge, a childish game: and damned if Freeman's gonna look away, damned if he'll be the first to blink. Without breaking eye-contact, he goes to his knees. Benrey stutters. Like a program taking a moment to load. His face is still infuriatingly blank, but there's a distinct air of 'what-the-fuck' to his body language now, and he blinks, and Gordon wins the staring contest. He thinks, _t_ _hat's right, you bastard._ He's opening that cupboard if he has to go through the other guy to do it.

Benrey's breath catches a bit when Gordon grabs his knees. Infinitesimal. A tiny hitch, a tiny gasp. A tiny victory. And Gordon - who's a big guy, a physically powerful guy - pushes the security guard's legs apart. Slowly, because he's tired and because the other guy doesn't want it to happen. But irresistibly. Forcefully. And he spreads them in the end, and his thumb works lazy circles into the inside of Benrey's left knee. Freeman's breathing kind of heavy, he realises. He's a little tight in the crotch, but that's probably just the way he's kneeling, probably nothing unwholesome about it.

Probably.

"wow buy me dinner first?" Benrey asks, breathily.

"I'm not asking for permission or forgiveness here, buddy. You get in my way, I'll go right through."

"oh no don't, oh please _noooo..."_

Gordon ignores him. He leans down underneath Benrey's spread legs. The key slots into the locked cupboard like a knife into a body.

And the other guy makes the strangest little noise when he hears the 'click' of it being unlocked. Like a hungry kitten. Gordon leans back and looks up between Benrey's thighs, ready to gloat a little, ready to savour the victory a bit, when his breath catches. The delayed register of a brain. Ripples of something dark go down his spine.

He makes the mistake of looking directly into the eyeless gap just under the brim of the security helmet.

The pure shadow - that complete blankness - the eyeless stare swallowed by the abyss leaking out-! Freeman feels his body shaking in reaction to something too big to understand. Something incomprehensible. A fragment of a larger entity. He's sweaty and shaking and this close, from this angle, it's clear there's nothing there - nothing under the gap where the shadow runs through, nothing piercing him like a smile, and yet in the hungry dark of them something watches-

Freeman falls backward so gently. His mind burrows deep into unconsciousness to escape that dark sense of uneasiness, and he topples backward, his body hits the floor so softly. And he

* * *

Dreams of a labyrinth, a monster, and an ending.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> damn it gordon you should a known better than to look a cryptid in the (not)eyes :/


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> blows blue bubbles at this fic to make it calm down a lil. timeout time

and he wakes up.

"What the _fuck_ was that?"

Freeman takes off his glasses and digs into his eyes. In doing so, he discovers that he is _still holding the key_ \- somehow, he has yet to unlock the cupboard; he's still kneeling in front of it. It's like the clock has been turned back a couple of seconds, so everything is still the same, he's still sweaty, still shaking. There's only one difference: Benrey is no longer sitting on the countertop above him. He is just leaning against the wall on the _other side of the room,_ like nothing surreal just happened, like time didn't just rewind.

Benrey looks across the room at where Freeman is kneeling in front of the cupboard, all disheveled and disoriented, and in a perfectly innocent tone of confusion he asks, "hey. what's wrong?"

Now. Freeman could react one of two ways. The first reaction is obvious: get stressed out about it, freak the fuck out about it, ask a thousand questions and get a thousand non-answers for his trouble. What? When? Why? How? Who? Questions without answers. The quote unquote 'security guard' is an unfathomable entity.

The second reaction happens on the flip of a coin. He moves past his instinctive desire to flip the fuck out, and he stops - he actually stops and thinks about it for a second. Does it really matter? Does he really need to know what just happened?

He lets himself ask one question. "Whatever you just did to me - that _thing,_ whatever I just saw - did it - was it _bad?"_

"huh?" Benrey looks blandly over Freeman's left shoulder. "I just had to reset you, bro, chill."

"You _reset_ me?"

"yeah, you saw too much. what was I sposed to do?"

"What-? Nnh. Okay. Okay." Freeman takes a deep breath, and lets it out. In regards to his mental stability, this is the equivalent of slapping a bandaid over a broken bone, but. "Got it. Everything is all right. Everything's fine. I just can't look at you directly, that's all, that's fine. I _just won't do that._ See? Easy. You can learn to live with anything. Everything is fine."

Benrey chuckles in a deprecating way. "tsk, yeahh okay motormouth. twenty words per second, new world record. say it enough times an it become true?"

"Yeah! You got it, buddy. Fake it 'til you make it."

"everything is A o-kay? nothing wrong with this situation? dont wanna... interrogate. about it?"

Gordon grins wildly. "Everything is just _fiine,_ bro. Believe it."

In the depths of Black Mesa are a thousand cold corridors. A thousand puzzles, a thousand checkpoints. And in the middle of this labyrinth, there's a break-room with three things in it. A table. A microwave. And a pair of soda machines. That's it. Easy enough to remember, right? In the spirit of simplicity we won't mention the dead pigeon, or the radio, or the secret passageway, even though these things were in there too. We'll keep it minimalist. Easy to remember. Table, microwave, soda machines. Got it? Nice.

Freeman unlocks the cupboard under the microwave. Take two. Try again. Take it from the top, this time, less eldritch nonsense please.

He finds inside-

He finds- he-

Freeman pauses. He finds no great secrets. No deep mysteries. No triumphant prizes. It's just - perfectly normal junk, stuff you'd actually find in a break-room cabinet. And see, that's the thing that throws Gordon for a loop. The contents of the cupboard are as follows: money, a notepad, a hi-lighter pen, a pair of scissors, a blacklight torch, and somebody's half-finished crochet blanket, with ball of thread and crochet hook still attached. Now. The blacklight torch _is_ interesting. It's probably useful. It probably reveals a mysterious secret message written on the wall, or something.

But it's the crochet blanket that Gordon picks up, running his fingers over the soft thread, staring quietly down at the last, half-finished row. There's a paperclip locked into the last loop to stop it unraveling, like a bookmark, holding the place. The crochet equivalent of a 'to be continued'.

Except it never will be continued, will it? It's all chaos out there, it's a _disaster,_ the Resonance Cascade and its ramifications wiped out probably all of the scientists. And all that's left of one of them - some nobody, some dead stranger - is this half-finished crochet project that they put the time into making, that they probably thought they'd be coming back to after the test, to work on during their break. It's a terribly human tragedy: the things left behind, the detritus of daily life. What remains? A smear on the wall? A flash of gore? But _this_ \- this small comfort - this _eternal work-in-progress_ \- all that remains of them is this soft crochet blanket, and Freeman rubbing the soft material between his hands.

Everything is fine.

Doctor Freeman hears, in the distance, in the silence, a heavy breathing sound in his left ear. 

"Do you mind?"

The breathing stops. And then it starts up again, heavy and steady and stronger than before, just to push his buttons.

And see this - _this_ Freeman can deal with. Annoying colleagues are so much easier to deal with than - like - the questions asked by an empty break-room. What conversations happened here over lunch? Where are those scientists now? Why did the Test go so _badly wrong?_ And how many corners of the facility are like this, how many ugly little rooms with their human histories, how many little tragedies just like this one? Annoying colleagues, in comparison to the death of the known world, are much more mundane problem. A nostalgic, comforting annoyance. A familiar grudge.

"Can I help you?" Freeman asks, half-turning around.

Benrey leans over his left shoulder, in that annoying way some colleagues do, where they just ignore personal space and get up in your work. "just checkin it out. gotta make sure you're not gonna steal anything?"

"Cool. So hey bro - you doing anything over the weekend?"

It's basic workplace talk. Office conversation starters, 101. An icebreaker, just to get the ball rolling, and Benrey drops the ball immediately. 

"nah," he shrugs.

Freeman twitches, irked. "Good for you? You like your playstation, right - I guess you're just gonna play games, right?"

"none of you business?"

A change of strategy is required. "Hey, that's cool. How about this afternoon - what are you gonna do when you get home, after all of this is over?"

Benrey shrugs. "nothin."

Gordon lays back on the cold hard floor, and throws the half-finished crochet blanket over his stomach. Lying on his back like this, just chilling, he can see the underside of the break-room table. Besides all the usual pieces of old hard old chewing gum, he can see a mysterious piece of graffiti. One word. Permanent marker. _'Pepsi'._ What's so special about that particular soda? Why did someone go to the trouble of writing it on the underside of the table? Why Pepsi? Why _not_ Pepsi?

Benrey sits crosslegged on the floor next to him.

"how bout chu?"

Gordon takes off his glasses and rolls his head, looking away from the other guy. "After this is all over? Yeah, I'm gonna sleep for twenty four hours, man."

"oh nice?"

"Yeah. You?"

Benrey just looks at him blankly, as if the last half of the conversation has been wiped from his mind. "huh?"

"What are you gonna do after all of this is over?"

Benrey doesn't answer the question. He just sort of - shrugs. 

"C'mon man. I'm just trying to be polite. Socialise. Good co-worker stuff, work with me here."

"I'm gonna... probably gonna peace out? gonna ditch and go play video games in the sky. mini-vacation, holiday baybee. I got my playstation wherever I go, I won't get bored."

Freeman doesn't know how to answer that. "Damn. Well that's... good then, at least you've got your playstation?"

"hell yeah man. me and the ps3 are fuckin console- _married,_ bust out the wedding bells, we consummating the ralationship _tonight."_

"Um."

"ooh little freeman flustered? you jealous? you gonna miss me?"

"Fuck off oh my god," Freeman says, but he's laughing. "Miss you? Why would I?"

"cos I'm a." Benrey licks his lips. "you kno-ow. ollie out. peace out gracefully, gonna float off into the sky, clip outta the map. gameover man. we both know it, right? how this goes? how this end?"

"Yeah I know. Forgive me for fuckin wanting _five seconds_ where you pretended you were a normal human co-worker. God."

"'m not human."

"I know."

"youuu got cha pass port?"

Freeman sighs.

"ya passport's _importan_ t b-r-o, you never know when you gonna need to. that's why you gotta have it. you never know when you'll need to, go on a _forced vacation_ , all of the all of a sudden."

Yep, that's ominous. That definitely sounds like a threat, or something, and Gordon rolls his head around to give the other guy a sideways look. _Passports again._ He's _obsessed_ with the damn things. There is no expression on Benrey's face, not a blink, not a flicker. And under the brim of the helmet, in the sockets where his eyes should be? The void of space runs in. Without his glasses it's blurry, but Gordon almost thinks he sees the shadows dripping down Benrey's face. Like tears made of the liquid abyss. Like _ink_ spilling out. 

"Can I ask you a personal question?" Gordon asks.

"you may. _ask."_

"If you're not human - what are you? Can we clear that up, once and for all?"

"'m your friend, bro."

Gordon swallows the instinctive irritation, tries to keep his voice level. "How do you figure that one? See, 'cos _you chopped my arm off,_ remember that? You see this machine-gun?" Gordon waves it in the air. "We're _e-ne-mies."_

"friends?"

"Enemies."

Benrey nods. "friends."

"Are we _fucking speaking_ the _same language?_ I feel like I'm talking to a," he yawns, "ahh, a brick wall here, man."

Fun fact number three: the Tower of Babel refers to the biblical story in which humanity decides to build a tower all the way up to heaven. Now, in some versions, humanity builds this Tower to become equal to Divinity, and so _He_ punishes their hubris by destroying their ability to understand one another. They find themselves divided: split and sundered by their inability to communicate. Hence the word 'Babel' meaning 'confusion'.

And maybe Freeman can imagine it. What it was like, back then. Because when he speaks? The words he says don't seem to reach Benrey's ears.

_"Enemies,"_ he insists, tiredly. _"En-eh-mees,"_ he says, in a voice as calm and composed as a clenched fist.

The security guard leans over and he tucks him in with the half-finished crochet blanket. He puts the attached ball of string on top of his chest. And he pats him on the head gently.

"frien _nnds."_ Benrey purrs with great satisfaction, as if he is settling the matter. 

The small gesture of kindness pisses him off unconditionally, and yet, Gordon hasn't quite got the energy to argue. "Hey. You wanna be friends?  Help me out. Help me solve this puzzle bullshit."

_"yeah_ 'cos we're _friends,_ you an me? best friennd?"

"Um. Hmm. I'm- urgh, not sure about that one. We're never gonna be bffs. But at _this_ point? If you want to help me get _out of here?_ I'll accept whatever help you're offering."

"tsk, yeahh you're not supposed to be in here."

_"I know._ So. You helping me escape?"

"mm yeah. I will not let you down. I will not let you down."

"So is this - are we calling a truce?"

"a _truce-?_ no. this is. I'm making sure you don't fuck it up, is all. makin sure you don't. do what you did before. in the test chamber."

"So no truce?"

"no forgiveness or permission?"

"What does that-?  Level with me here, bro. What. Does. That. _Mean?"_

"means I bully you for you own good, _friend,_ gotta antagonise you into doin _everythinng_. gotta getcha off your ass. so don't expect no 'sorry's, don't expect no forgive-ness or per-mission, and I'll expect no thank you's. no truce. no tears. if you take me out you better not miss."

"Trust me. I won't." 

"better not. just sayin. don't miss me, _friend."_

"Miss you? Why would I ever?" he yawns again. "It's chill. It's cool. Everything's fine. I'm fine, you're fine. It's all fine."

But are they friends? They live on their own little tower of Babel, where they speak the same words without understanding each other. Hell, maybe when Benrey says 'enemy', Gordon hears him say 'friend'. Maybe on some level, the two words mean the same thing. Enemy. Friend. Frenemies. Fragments. The point of language is to be understood, and in the end, language fails them. In the end, the tower falls.

Gordon mumbles inaudibly, exhaustion mangling his pronunciation. "Wake me if I stahgumfnmrh..."

Benrey nods reassuringly. "yes, I will definitely do that."

Here's the thing. 

If Benrey wanted to leave - _really wanted_ to get out of this room - he could just go. He could clip through the wall, use his freaky teleportation powers or whatever. He could leave Freeman behind. So why doesn't he? Why stick around, why spend the time, why offer to help him escape?

Gordon hugs the sad little crochet blanket closer, and watches through drooping eyelids as the other guy explores the open cupboard. Whatever the reason it's nice, not to be alone. It's nice to watch someone else jumping through puzzle hoops, dealing with Black Mesa's bullshit. And as he watches, Benrey picks up the blacklight torch and flicks it on and off rapidly, and shines it around the room. A mysterious arrow appears on the far wall, pointing mysteriously at the soda machines. Benrey walks over to poke it, and Gordon falls off into dreams again.

Let someone else run the maze, for once. Let someone else be the lab-rat.

* * *

Freeman dreams in a flurry of images and sensations, a thousand fantasies flipping past, whirling like a paper windmill.

First, he has this dream where the Test never happened, and there's no aliens or anything, and he's just having lunch with the security guy. Just breakroom conversations, getting on each other's nerves. Just a perfect workplace environment where nobody tries to cut his _fucking arm off._ And then the dream changes! And he's in another reality entirely: a dream where he's roommates with the security guard for some reason? And they're sitting on the couch together, and Benrey turns to Freeman in the numinous glow of the TV, and his tired eyes flick to Freeman's lips for a second, and - and he swallows, and then - the world shifts, and the dream moves on.

And then.

The recurring nightmare:

He's running down the cold concrete corridors of a maze. A labyrinth. He turns down corner after corner and he never finds the exit. And then - just when he's lost beyond all hope - the big monster comes for him. The entity. The giant. It takes him firmly by the arm and leads him gently deeper into the heart of the labyrinth.

And in the central chamber, it turns around. 

"hey. umm you're not supposed to be in here?"

"But you _led me here."_

"yeahh, and now I hafta kill you. sorry. maybe there right... video games? does cause violence."

It rips open a mouth in the face it doesn't have, and in the heart of the labyrinth that doesn't exist, the big monster swallows him whole. Game over, lose a life. And Gordon loves video games, but he _hates_ losing.

As always, he misses the point: 

That the nightmare ends, and he _wakes up._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wouldn't it be nice if the Test never happened? it would be a lot less interesting, but. I do think about it. the human grief of it all...


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok jk i lied about things calming down. i am never not on my bullshit

Something rouses him. Freeman tries to sit up even as he's swimming up through the layers of dreams and unconsciousness. Trying to seperate fantasy from reality is a process: he feels like he's pushing away the folds of a curtain. He has to tell himself _'no, I'm not roommates with Benrey'_ and _'yes, this cold concrete mattress is uncomfortable'_. He tries to sit up. He can't.

"are you okay?"

The reason he can't sit up is because he has a heavy weight on his chest. Such as, for example, a sleep paralysis demon. Or a certain security guard squatting over his torso.

"are you okay?"

Gordon croaks out, "Are you sitting on me?" 

He cracks open an eye, and yes: sitting on top of him, peering blankly down, guess who it is? Guess who?

The guy has his bony fingers pressing into Freeman's throat, against his jugular vein. The touch of his skin is human and warm. And yet it still makes Freeman's flesh crawl inexplicably, like an itch all over, and he's hot and sweaty and shaking again. An awkward tightness in certain private areas of the HEV suit only adds to the overall irritation. Peace was nice while it lasted, at least.

"are you okay? why were you start compulsions?"

"Com - _convulsions?_ No I'm fine."

"you were dead," explains Benrey.

"Well I'm not?"

"no you were dead, bro you didn't have a pulse I _checked."_ The security guard clicks his tongue. "I dunno what to tell you man. every time you go to sleep that's. you just die."

"I was _asleep."_

"yeah and how many times you died?"

"Get off me, man."

Benrey stays crouched over Gordon's torso. His hand doesn't leave Gordon's throat, he's still 'checking his pulse' apparently. And when he doesn't budge, when he ignores Gordon telling him to get off, this hits a button in his head marked 'pure divine wrath'.

Freeman goes from zero to sixty on force of fury alone, he is instantly full of heart-thumping hate, instinctively burning with rage. But Benrey? He doesn't even blink when Freeman grabs the offending touch and squeezes the wrist with intention to break it. That bland stare stays the same: deep frown lines at the mouth, shadows clinging, bags under the eyes. He keeps Gordon pinned.

"I'm serious, asshole," he says, gripping Benrey's wrist until the bones grind.

"I'm not touching you," the asshole complains.

But he's a _liar,_ his fingertips are still just barely in contact, just barely touching the skin of Freeman's neck, and that feather-light touch sends those nerves to screaming. Something tightens in his gut: a thread pulled taut, an itch, an itch. The closeness causes a private part of him to rise: innuendo intentional. It's too hot. It's too tight. It feels like invisible ants crawling over his neck. Like the sharp tickle of a live wire, licking at his pulse, it sends him _out of his mind with frustration._

And then the security guard leans in close, and tilts his head just the tiniest amount. His eyes flicker to Freeman's mouth. A traitorous part of the man twitches in interest.

"are you okay?"

"Dude."

"yeah?"

"Off me."

"kiss of life?"

Freeman punches Benrey in the face hard. With his right arm - the gatling-prosthetic. See, the thing about his machine-gun hand? God knows why, but it punches a hell of a pack. Benrey gets knocked back across the room so hard he hits the far wall. There's a crash, like the percussion of cymbals and Benrey stands up covered in blood. Not injured! Not wounded! The skin never breaks. But for Freeman, nevertheless, the sight of blood still satisfies something unwholesome inside.

"was just trying to help, what the fuck."

"Like hell you were."

"you said to wake you up if in a medical emergency? and you _died_. ragdoll corpse bro, how 'm I sposed to know the difference between?"

"Did I ask for a personal _sleep paralysis demon?"_

"you're welcome?"

"Did I _ask_ you to sit on me?"

"I may sit wherever I please and thank you?"

"Goddamnit. No. No. I've had enough - no, look, you stay-" Freeman waves his arms down the middle of the break-room. _"Over there._ Opposite sides of the table at all times. I'm laying down the borders here: if you get within melee range I'll fucking deck you again, okay?"

"ok _ay."_

"Okay."

"oh-k _ay_ -yuh. yeah I was gonna show the way out and everything, but you a being the a _worst_ friend. so. don't wanna."

The security guy walks over to sit on his side of the table. He doesn't even wipe the blood off or anything, he just gives Freeman that familiar blank look, that expressionless stare. What does it mean? That face. What does that stare mean? Is there a word for that empty emotion?

The other guy looks away.

Silence.

Gordon cracks. "Okay. Where's the way out?"

"yeah but you were mean, so."

"Can we cease the hostilities for a moment? Please? Look - you pissed me off. You can't wake me up like that. I don't like it. I react badly, you noticed. But look - I appreciate the concern. I appreciate that you were trying to help. I think?"

"thank you?"

"Thank you, sure, whatever. Now: the way out. The puzzle bullshit. Did you solve it?"

"thank you? yes. stay there- I will. get it ready."

"Yeah?"

"yeah you were mean, but I'm _nice,_ so just this once. I will I'll solve it. just this once."

He makes aborted shuffling movements in Freeman's direction, and he realises _'right, yeah, he's staying out of melee range, like he promised'_. It's nice to know he can set boundaries and have them obeyed, kind of. But a part of Freeman feels... let down, somehow. A dark part of him kinda wanted the other guy to try some shit: to break the boundary, cross the border, declare war. Obviously Gordon could never ask Benrey to do it; he could never give him permission, could never forgive him if he tried. But the cacoethes remains; a part of him yearns, nevertheless; for the other guy to touch him, to be able to touch him back.

...does Freeman _like_ being pinned down? Surely not.

They swap sides of the table. The security guy goes over to the cupboard and pulls everything out, mumbling to himself. If there's a point to what he's doing, it's not obvious. Basically he just seems to be messing around. Benrey picks up the blacklight torch and turns it on. Stares into the glow of it, mind stuttering.

And then he seems to forget whatever he was doing, and he turns it off. He mumbles to himself in a breathy sort of way. Picks up things. Moves them to one side or another. The notepad and the hi-lighter he picks up with great care, and lovingly places them right down in the centre of the table. The scissors he picks up, snips them once or twice, and turns to look at Gordon.

Seriously, what is that look? _What is he thinking?_ The shadow of the helmet falls like a silk blindfold across Benrey's sockets. 

"hey," he says, scissors in hand. "wanna?"

"What?"

"yo, you wanna?"

_"What?"_

No answer. Benrey turns away. He regards the microwave in a distinctly ominous way, and like the inevitable shears of fate, like entropy itself, he snaps the scissors shut.

"Do I wanna fuck? Is that what you're asking?" Freeman says. "Are you _bored,_ is that it?"

Benrey isn't listening. He's messing with the microwave, pushing buttons, muttering. He opens the door. He puts the scissors inside the metal box. And then he turns it on, and oh shit, Gordon Freeman ducks under the table just in time.

Fun fact number four: this is how an ordinary microwave works. Food is placed inside a metal box and rotated gently. As it rotates, a device called a 'magnetron' generates 'microwaves' and these waves are absorbed by the food molecules, heating it up. Now. The reason this happens inside a metal box is because 'microwaves' reflect off metal surfaces. Therefore if a sufficiently large metal object is placed _inside_ this metal box, the 'microwaves' will reflect off it too much, potentially creating a dense electric charge. It gives off sparks. It catches on fire. Arcs of electricity. It can even, in a worst case scenario, generate a dangerous surge that kills the microwave completely.

And so yes, when Benrey puts the scissors in the microwave, all of the above happens. Sparks fly. Fire blooms.

But this isn't an ordinary microwave, is it? It's a _Black Mesa microwave._

_-kzzzzt-_

Which means it's got _extra features._

_-kzzzzzt-_

After the fireworks, Freeman peers out from underneath the table. The overhead lights are dead. The microwave is crackling away like a happy little campfire, bringing light and warmth to the otherwise dark room, and Benrey is sitting cross-legged on top of it, as if he's proud of the whole disaster. There's an odd noise coming from somewhere nearby - like an old radio, or an old fashioned television - the sound of static. Like dead air on a blank channel. And in the white noise, Freeman hears a familiar voice.

_-kzzzzzzt- sk- sk-_

_"_ _-can you hear me? Is everything all right?”_

And Gordon realises: it's coming from the burning microwave, somehow. That voice! It's like a choir of angels, the overwhelming relief that runs through him! He goes weak at the knees and collapses back into the chair, and kind of wants to cry from pure happiness.

_“Hello, Gordon! It’s Doctor Coomer. If you can hear this, well done! You’ve just activated the Secret Intercom! All Black Mesa radios, speakers, and microwaves are able to function as ‘walkie-talkies’ as necessary.”_

"That's - incredibly convenient?"

_"Hello, Gor-! Yes."_

"How are you guys going with the rescue mission?"

Coomer pauses awkwardly. Hesitates before replying. _"Ah - I'm afraid to say that we are knee-deep in puzzle shit, Gordon."_

That doesn't sound good. Nevertheless, Freeman closes his eyes, aching. How many times has he yearned for this? To hear the voice of one of the other scientists - an ally - a friend - while trapped in this tiny room? How long has he longed for a connection to the outside world, a spider-thread out of hell, a hope to hold onto?

"What's the bad news? Are you guys going to be ages?"

 _"Not at all, Gordon!_ _This is the fourth chamber, only thirteen more to go! In order to progress, we need to solve the Death Sudoku - luckily, our Doctor Bubby knows all of the tricks!"_

"Wait - thirteen more chambers?"

_"These chambers get progressively harder as you work through them. Only thirteen more chambers to go, Gordon!"_

"Oh. Fantastic."

_"Say Gordon, is everything all right?"_

"Yeah, fine." Freeman answers instinctively, but then adds, "I don't know, Doctor Coomer. I really don't. I'm trapped in this bullshit puzzle break-room, with this fucking eldritch abomination, and we're not any closer to escaping than we were hours ago. It's fucking draining. I go to sleep, and it does nothing, I'm still tired whenever I wake up."

_"That sounds serious, Gordon. You may be allergic to liminal spaces! A liminal space is created when we interact with a place outside of it's usual context. The word 'liminal' means 'threshold' and refers to a transitory state, such as being between two seperate realities or identities. Liminal spaces can feel 'creepy' or - Hello, Gordon!"_

"Hey Doctor Coomer."

_"Say Gordon, is everything all right?"_

"I wanna go home."

_"But you have no home. There's nothing outside of Black Mesa, don't you remember?"_

"Yeah, I know. I know."

The words leave him in a gust of wind, a deep exhale. It's a relief to talk to Coomer, sure. It's a relief to hear from someone else, and the burning microwave offers a comforting warmth, like a campfire for the soul. But despite his relief, Gordon only feels more alone. The connection is - too fragile. The distance too great. The radio links them, to be sure, but it also hammers in the distance between. It enables them to communicate, yes, but do they understand each other? They find themselves divided.

 _"Oh dear."_ Coomer says.

"What?"

_"I don't mean to alarm you, Gordon, but Bubby just finished the Death Sudoku. We're moving onto the next chamber, and I won't be able to talk to you again."_

"Can't you - bring the radio with you?"

_"It's a bit big, Gordon."_

Freeman doesn't want to let go. "How big? Maybe if you all lift together, maybe you can carry it...?"

_"It's the size of a truck, Gordon. I'm sorry, Gordon."_

"That's okay. I'm just. It's okay, I'm fine, really. I'm just happy to hear that there are _other people_ outside this room."

In between bursts of static, Freeman hears Coomer's laugh coming through the radio, a tinny crackle, _"Oho ho ho, Gordon. **We aren't people.** All -kzzt- Black Mesa 'Coomer' clones, 'Bubby' prototypes, and children o- interdimensional government agents -kzzzt- not technically classified as 'people'! It's tragic, Gordon. You -kzzzt- know better tha- to bring it up!"_

"Coomer? Coomer? The static, it's - I'm sorry - I'm losing you."

_"D-n't be, Gor-! -kzzzt- we may not be 'people' but we- still your frie-ds, and th-t's wh-!"_

_-kzzzzzt-_

The microwave burns cheerfully, but Gordon feels cold. He wants to tuck himself into the corner with the half-finished crochet blanket, and hug the ball of string for an hour or so, or something. Before the Resonance Cascade, Doctor Freeman felt like a bit of a lab rat, running through mazes, jumping through hoops. He still feels like a lab rat. But now he’s realising that he needs the maze, needs the scientists poking and prodding at him, needs the end goal. Isn’t that pathetic? That he can’t function outside of the place that he hates?

Oh. That’s a horrible thing to realise. What if there _is_ nothing outside of Black Mesa? Not _literally_ \- Freeman’s pretty sure the apocalypse didn’t demolish _everything -_ but as in, what if there’s nothing out there for _him?_ What if he _can’t_ rage-quit? Where else can he go? He tries to think of another place, and he can’t.

Outside the maze, a rat is just a pest.

"hey."

"What?"

"say please and thank you?"

"What am I, a child?"

The security guard doesn't answer that question. He just stares down Gordon in the dark, with that weighted gaze, and with the way he's haloed by the flames his face is just an oval of pure shadow. There's not even the glitter of eyes. Not even a cat-like reflection, no glowing discs in that featureless silhouette. Just - nothing, just the abyss. Staring without seeing. Staring him down with a strange intensity.

_What is that look?_

"...Thanks."

"baby infant learns his manners! well done? good boy?"

"Cut that shit out."

"polite and thank you?" Benrey pauses for a thousand years. His train of thought transforms into a spaceship, and he stares out into space, somewhere light-years away. He returns to earth. "oh hey we're still stuck in here? what the fuck."

Gordon surprises himself by laughing out loud. The way Benrey says it with such honest confusion. It's so convincing. It's so deceptive. He sounds genuinely annoyed, genuinely disappointed: _'what the fuck,'_ he says, in the manner of someone encountering a mild inconvenience. It's fucking hilarious. Freeman cracks. The dam breaks. The stress comes out in a creaky whine, which turns into soft, silent peals of laughter. He's not laughing because it's particularly funny - he's laughing because he wants to cry.

Freeman takes a deep breath, and says, cheerfully. "Yeah, still stuck! But everything's fine man, let's stay in here _forever,_ how's that sound?"

Benrey turns his head sharply at that, and gives him that eldritch look again. That almost _bored_ expression. What does it mean? The shadow catches his eyes, and the rich darkness runs through. It's so easy - too easy to imagine it dripping down like ink - something bigger, unfathomable, beyond understanding-

Maybe 'eldritch' is the wrong word. It implies something bigger, like a god, or a demon. Is the security guard a god? Hell no. He's not a god he's just - some guy who likes video games. Right? Right? Right?

Freeman looks at him directly, and he deliberately doesn't look away. When he passes out, it's honestly a relief, but before everything fades to black he can almost-

He can almost see, in the blurry abyss of Benrey's face-

He can almost see-

* * *

Recently, Doctor Freeman has been having this recurring nightmare:

He's trapped in the depths of a maze. A thousand cold corridors, a thousand twists, a thousand turns. And down past all these corridors with their cold concrete floors, with their strange physics, Freeman runs around like a lab-rat. And yet a part of him never wants to find the way out. Because the thing is - although these strange chambers are horrible and twisted - they're also _familiar_. You can love something that hurts you. You can be nostalgic for terrible places, is the thing, terrible although they may be. 

Freeman doesn't want to find the exit. Black Mesa is all he's good at, it's all he's got - he can't end the nightmare on his own. It's just as well, perhaps, that he never gets the choice.

Instead Benrey takes him firmly by the arm and leads him gently down. Deeper into the centre. There's only one way out of the labyrinth, and that's to get right down to the heart of it, right down to the roots, and deracinate it. And a monster is easy to kill. An easy ending. An easy exit. The only way out of the labyrinth is to kill the monster, or for the monster to kill you. Either way, one of you has to lose.

In the recurring nightmare, Benrey takes Gordon by the hand, and he smiles - and that's the thing! Only in his dreams does Benrey ever smile. It's not a nice smile, sure. Not a happy smile, either. It is, if anything, hungry.

"gonna eat you up," he says, playing the storybook villain, grinning a cheshire smile. "gonna kill you dead."

"Please don't?"

"then you gotta hafta kill me. take me out, better do it in one shot."

"I don't feel like it."

"tough shit man! but I'll tell you what I'll be nice. I'm a be the best enemy you ever had, I'm a help you out buddy, _friend._ I'm a make it simple. I hate you?"

"I hate you too, man."

Benrey swings their locked hands together as they walk down together into the depths of the nightmare.

"this is so fuckin romantic. romantic comady. you ha-a _ate_ me?"

He draws the word out, sing-song and teasing.

"Yes."

"you wanna hu-uurt me?"

"Yes."

"you wanna _ki-iill_ me? wanna kill me dead? wanna?"

"Yes. But."

"what?"

"I don't want you to go."

In the nightmare, Benrey smiles. It's not a happy smile.

"tough shit bro," he says.

And he leans in close: slow and romantic and sensuous.

But before he can be devoured, Gordon brings up the machine gun - courtesy of Benrey, the involuntary amputation - really, it's only _fair_ to kill him with it. And he fires. He kills that fucking monster, he has to, he _has_ to, hasn’t got a choice - it’s that or be eaten alive, it's that or _lose._ And Gordon hates to lose. As Benrey falls, he sees it: a flicker, a flash of white, a sharp smile. Like the other guy is having _fun,_ somehow. What's so fun about losing?

Gordon lets go. Benrey's limp hand slips out so easily.

And that's that, he's won! The nightmare lingers awkwardly for a moment, as if it's not sure what to do with itself anymore. It leaves in bits and pieces - first, the corpse disappears, and then the walls, and then Gordon's standing in the centre of the emptiness, blissfully and utterly alone. It is euphoric. Peaceful. Nobody annoying him, or eating him alive, or sitting on top of him, pinning him down. Nobody at all.

He's _won._

* * *

-can almost see something sincere.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i just realised... if benrey's a catboy and gordon's a lab-rat... oh my god, its tom and jerry


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay. Check the updated tags, and if you're not down for it, or you're underage, feel free to check out [this cool video instead.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YiqzFTpxQN4&ab_channel=MarsPolaris) [Or this one,](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOMcntuSagw&ab_channel=mint-bees) [or this one,](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TIKklLua0XQ&ab_channel=Bradimey)[ or this one.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oe_yOI9UoAo&ab_channel=UserMaiine) It's okay. Thank you for reading.
> 
> everyone else, obvious warnings ahoy: don’t send this to any of the cast, you are in control of your online experience, please be a responsible adult, don't like don't read, etc, etc, you know the drill
> 
> -

"Let's play a game."

"nice. what happens to the winner?"

"They get - I dunno, a prize or something."

"or something?"

"Anything, whatever, we'll sort it out afterwards, okay man? Let's just play. I'm fuckin' bored."

At the end of the day it doesn't matter how he got stuck in this - this little backroom, identical to the thousands of other Black Mesa backrooms. It doesn't matter how Freeman came to be trapped in here, or if the scientists rescue him in the end, or how he escapes. All that matters is this scene: two people sitting either side of a shitty break-room table, playing a game. Sometimes, when two people hate each other very much... it's very romantic. And at the end of the day, whatever happens, it doesn't count. It's play. It's a rehearsal. It's backstage, it's _the Green Room._ This little scene playing out behind the scenes of the facility? At the end of the day? It doesn't count.

It's just a play, but that doesn't stop Gordon from playing to win. He likes games, after all. 

They sit opposite sides of the table - Benrey sitting _on_ the table, naturally - with the notepad and the hi-lighter placed carefully in the midway point between them. In the no-man's land. Freeman sits in the chair opposite, the crochet blanket wrapped snugly around his shoulders, the attached ball of thread sitting in his lap. It's dark in here. The overhead lights are dead, and the room is gloomy, which makes it almost - intimate. As if it's a candlelit date, an evening between lovers. 

In the dark, they're playing noughts and crosses - tic-tac-toe. The original.

Freeman hashes out a grid on the paper with the hi-lighter pen. Three by three. Nine spaces. The lines of the grid glow bright under the blacklight of the upright torch, like a futuristic video game of some sort, because of course, hi-lighter pen shows up under an ultra-violet light. The Players take turns to put down an 'X' or an 'O' with the goal of filling three squares in a row. However, between two sufficiently advanced opponents, there can be no winners. No victory, no loss - only a draw. That is assuming, of course, that nobody makes a mistake.

Or lets the other person win.

Freeman goes to put his mark in the centre square. And Benrey leans across the table and blocks him, putting his palm flat over the notepad.

He looks up at Gordon with his hand covering the paper, pausing the minigame. "I wanna be 'X'?"

Gordon had intended to be 'O'. But just because the other guy got in his way, he's going to be contrary. "No. I'm playing as 'X'. Move."

"you were gonna write 'O' just now."

"I wasn't," he lies.

"you were."

"How could you possibly know that? There's no way you could know that. Can you read my thoughts?"

"no, but. that would be so fucking cool."

"Can you tell what I'm thinking? Download my brain, or some shit?"

"no, but."

Freeman pauses in surprise. Honestly, he assumed - well he's got all these freaky powers and shit - so this guy can't actually read his thoughts? "Good to know," he says. And just to be contrary, he hashes out a second grid on the back of Benrey's hand. And right in the middle square he draws a big, fat, cross. "Your move, bro."

Benrey pulls away. He examines the back of his hand in perfectly bored fascination, and perfectly content, he says, "I'm 'X' now."

"What?"

"look it says so right here. I'm 'X'."

"No, I wrote that. It's your move."

"thank you very much?"

"No!"

"thank you? _yes._ hugs and kisses. x-o-x-o." Benrey pronounces the letters individually, 'ex-oh-ex-oh', and he regards the phosphorescent 'X' on the back of his hand with an expressionless expression. Soulless eyes. Bored and relaxed. His words finally land in Freeman's ears.

"Wait. Kiss? I didn't kiss you."

"it says so right here that you did. 'X' marks the spot, bro."

"I didn't - no, I take it back. Give me your hand, I'll scrub it off."

But the other guy pulls his marked hand back to his chest, possessively. "too late, man, can't take a back a kiss that's just _rude."_

"I didn't mean it!"

"yeah you did?"

There's a barb in his heart. There must be - there's no other explanation for this strange tugging sensation. A thorn? A fish-hook, an itch in his heart that craves something painful and unwholesome, a hunger that encourages him to take the leap, take the plunge, that makes all his worst ideas feel like perfectly natural suggestions. 'X' marks the spot. Sealed with a kiss. There _is_ something possessive about that, and Gordon Freeman wants to - wants to - no! He controls his darker impulses. If he feeds them, they'll come back.

Freeman looks down at the notepad. The tic-tac-toe square. He makes the first move, he marks an 'X' right in the centre, and he looks up at the other guy to see if he'll challenge it. But Benrey seems perfectly happy to admire the 'X' on his hand, and doesn't make a fuss. Gordon gets that strange stabbing sensation in his heart again. Did he drink something poisonous? Is that why he feels this knife between his ribs? It might be the old plays coming back to haunt them - Romeo and Juliet, where he drinks poison, and she stabs herself. But that one isn't exactly a comedy.

Benrey takes the hi-lighter and puts an 'O' in the top right corner. And the game begins:

| | **o**

_____|_____|_____

| **x** | 

_____|_____|_____

| |

| |

Gordon puts an 'X' in the bottom right square. Benrey puts an 'O' in the top left square. Gordon blocks him with an 'X' in the top middle square and slides the notepad back across the table. If Benrey doesn't block him in the bottom middle? He's nearly got three in a row.

The security guy doesn't touch it for a second. He's too distracted by the 'X', the kiss, the glowing signature on the back of his hand. Freeman looks him up and down casually. It's not that Benrey is hot? Because he's _really_ not, at least in any conventional sense - it's more that the image of him sitting on the table, backlit by the fire, the dim glow of the soda-machines giving him a numinous halo... it's the image, and it hits something satisfying in Freeman's chest, like a thread being pulled taut. This image: a security guard with his head half-cocked, looking down and away, while his eyes dip into perfect weeping shadows and the rest of him is held loose and lazily, like a puppet, like a clay doll.

Maybe this guy is eldritch, is the thing. Maybe he _is_ a fragment of something bigger, something unfathomable, a giant, something beyond comprehension. Freeman's gaze lingers on the exposed line of his neck, the adam's apple, the slight hollow at the base of his throat. It looks human, but still. Maybe he is a god. Maybe he _is_ a god.

Benrey looks up at him suddenly, and Freeman jerks his gaze away, flushed.

"hey. wanna fuck?"

He squirms in his seat. "God _damnit,_ you're _still_ asking?"

The other guy flicks the blacklight torch on and flashes it at Freeman. Just to be irritating. Just because he's a nuisance.

"wanna?"

"I hate you."

"wanna?"

And Gordon - doesn't say no. He doesn't say anything. The security guard makes an interesting little noise with his Black Mesa Sweet Voice, and picks up the hi-lighter, and makes a move. He puts a glowing 'O' in the bottom middle. Blocks him. And the game follows thus: 

**o** | **x** | **o**

_____|_____|_____

| **x** | 

_____|_____|_____

| **o** | **x**

| |

Fun fact number five: tic-tac-toe is a fundamentally flawed game. The aim is to get three in a row of either noughts or crosses, and to prevent an opponent from achieving the same. However, between players of sufficiently advanced skill, the game inevitably enters a 'deadlock'. Neither player can make the winning move without being blocked by the other, and so the only way out is a tie, or a draw. Unless somebody makes a mistake, of course. Or lets the other person win.

This is where the game sits right now. It's Gordon's turn but there's no real moves he can make. If he goes in the middle left, Benrey will block him on the middle right. And if he goes in the middle right, Benrey will block him on the middle left. Unless somebody messes up, the game is heading towards a draw.

But Freeman's mind isn't really on the game. He's not concentrating. He can't keep his thoughts straight.

His attention keeps coming back to his opposition, across the table. Appraising - he _seems_ human. But Gordon knows better, doesn't he? He knows that although Benrey seems identical to the thousands of average unkempt Black Mesa security guards, he's anything but. His bullet-proof vest bears the same 'Security' across the back - a misnomer, considering Freeman feels anything but secure, anything but safe. His shirt is the same stiff fabric - blue cotton-blend, well-worn and faded. His sleeves are crumpled and creased in a such a human way, but Gordon knows better, doesn't he? Because think about it: Benrey is exactly as unkempt and crumpled as he was before the Test. _Think about it._ A thousand rooms later, a thousand puzzles down - and this undying asshole _hasn't changed a bit._

"Seriously, bro. Are you a god, or what?"

"hell yeah, god of gaming. the pog champion right here."

"You fuckin' liar, you're not."

"can you read minds? no? guess what I'm thinking of right now. guess."

"Video Games."

"no I was thinking about you."

Gordon's stupid, stupid heart stutters in his chest. A program taking a moment to load. There's a stabbing pain, like poison, like a knife twisting between his ribs. _"Liar."_

"sometimes your friends lie to you, man. can you read minnds? can you telepath what I am thinkinng? no you can't?"

"What are you? Really?"

"friend."

_"Enemy."_

"same dif."

"No it's not 'same difference' bro, friends don't _try to kill you."_

"yeah they do? your friends are secretly mean. your friends they kill people, and you wouldn't know, 'cos you can't be in their brains, can you?"

Freeman bites his tongue.

He smells something tense - the smell of blood, or ozone - like when you put your face very close to a metal surface on a hot day, and you breathe in this, this kind of _metallic tang_. If pain had a smell, this would be it. And when he looks across the table, at the image of the other guy sitting up there? With the microwave burning behind him, bathing him red, like the fires of hell? The image sets something off in him. Lights a fuse. Wakes him up. All of a sudden, the details pop out in his vision, the colours burst into view, and he blinks. He feels- he _feels_ -

_Alive._

Benrey looks meaningfully down at the tic-tac-toe notepad. Gordon picks up the hi-lighter and makes a useless move. Middle left. It doesn't matter. Unless Benrey messes up - or lets him win - the game is inevitably going to end in a draw.

Freeman's mind isn't on the game. It's on the opposition, his opponent. His antagonist.

It's Benrey's turn. He looks up at Freeman, he makes heavy eye-contact. And he kisses the back of his hand, right over the 'X'.

Freeman inhales sharply and presses his thighs together to hide an embarrassing involuntary reaction. Why is that so _fucking hot?_ Maybe the drawn out game is getting to him. Maybe it's the possessiveness of it. The way Benrey presses his lips directly onto Gordon's shitty little 'X', on the mark that he made, on his 'kiss'. Claiming it. Claiming _him._ Staring him down, challenging. And from this close, from this angle? Gordon can't hide his reaction - can't hide the jolt of heat that goes through him in that instant, the tension pooling in his groin - the way he can't. He can't. _He can't look away._ The security guard breathes heavily, staring him down, and Gordon grows dizzy.

But Benrey's distracted too. Maybe that's why he makes a mistake - or lets him win.

Either way, he puts his final 'O' in the wrong square. It takes Freeman a second to see it, but when he does, he jerks forward and scribbles an 'X' in the middle right. And that's it, he wins! Three in a row, winner gets a prize. 

Gordon loves games. Winning them, at least.

**o** | **x** | **o**

_____|_____|_____

**x** | **x** | **x**

_____|_____|_____

**o** | **o** | **x**

| |

His first reaction to victory is incomprehensible, genuine elation. It's just a game, but it still feels so satisfying.

His second reaction is more along the lines of _'fuck me, holy shit'_ because Benrey's still staring him down with that heavy gaze. There's something _weird_ about his eyes - they're too dark, they glitter so - and oh, Gordon realises, it's the _pupils._ They're blown wide and black. And Gordon's heart's still going hard, and he's still shaking and sweaty and-

And-

_Oh._

Benrey stands up and walks around to Gordon's side of the table. He gets right up into melee range, the bastard: he breaks the boundary, _ignores_ the border, he crosses the line. Gordon can only stare up at him in fury. Here's the thing - he could stop it happening, if he wanted to. He could punch him again, like he promised he would, he could shoot or scream or walk away. But he doesn't. And Benrey looks down at him with that perfect sweet shadow of a face, his pupils dilated with some powerful blackout emotion, and he just - stares.

There's no word for that look. That lack of expression. But it frustrates him beyond rationality, anyway, it infuriates him beyond sanity. Freeman doesn't know what it means. But it pisses him off like nothing else. 

"hey," the eldritch abomination says. "gonna you use your arm again? hit me. free hit. dare you. you won't."

Freeman takes off the soft crochet blanket and folds it up carefully. He puts the softness, the kindness aside, he puts it gently on the table where it won't get damaged. He could hit the other guy, he could send him flying. But he doesn't.

"I hate you." Freeman says.

"you love me?"

"Same difference."

"I hate you so much? yeah?"

"Yeah."

"you, nice." Benrey clicks his fingers as if remembering something. "oh hey you _won_ bro you get a - uhh the winning prize? whatcha want?"

"I hate you." 

"yo. use your words man. is it gameover? gameover? say it and I stop. dare you. say it."

"I hate you."

"say it."

_"Nngh."_

"nice."

Benrey puts a palm flat against Gordon's chest, as if to keep him pinned in his seat - as if Gordon _wants_ to escape - as if his dick isn't extremely interested. The touch, the inexplicable human heat of the other guy. It _burns him up inside._ Anybody who's ever been burned knows how much it hurts. Boiling water, a candle flame, hot metal. To be singed means aching pulses of heat for _hours_ afterwards, impossible to cool, impossible to soothe. And now. And _now_ Freeman understands why fires are described as 'raging' - because the ripples of rage pounding through his body? The anger in his muscles, the tight frustration between his thighs?

It burns. It _burns._

The bastard leans in, breathing hard. From this close, from this angle, the dead-eyed stare has a physical weight. 

Gordon swallows. _"Don't_ fuckin' touch me."

Benrey stutters. A flicker of hesitation. But when Freeman's hand stays fisted on his thighs, when he doesn't say _gameover,_ the other guy reaches out and cups the back of his head. And he pulls him bodily forward into a dizzying kiss. 

"Mmnnf." Freeman's eyes fall shut. This is - it is the most _rudest,_ most _frustrating_ thing - there's no explanation for the way his left hand is knotted in Benrey's tie, all of a sudden, pulling him closer. No explanation whatsoever for the way his heart is rattling like a geiger counter, for the way he doesn't try to escape even at all. And Benrey grips the back of his neck to keep him there, as if Freeman wants to be anywhere else.

"I'll tell you what," The other guy says, dropping words in between kisses. "I'll be nice. I'm a be the best enemy you ever had. I'm a ruin you for anybody else, _bro,_ I'm a take you a part frien _nnd."_

That last word drops off into a rattling growl, and the other guy nuzzles a little lower against Gordon's chin. He tilts his neck up slightly - offering - and when Benrey goes for it, when he - teeth scraping under his jaw, biting bluntly at the line of his throat, at the jugular vein, at the little hollow above his collarbone and tearing open the HEV suit-

Gordon gasps vehemently. "Ha- _ahh._ You're - ah - the _worst_ friend."

"damnn fuckin _best_ enemy tho, I'm a take you to pieces if you let me. are you gonna let me?"

"Nnh - _hell_ \- no."

"thats what I _want to hear,_ bro, fuckin _try and stop me."_

It flips a switch. No forgiveness, no permission. For a few mindless seconds, Freeman is a deranged being of pure rage and adrenaline, and then they're on the floor somehow. It's not quite wrestling, because neither of them are on top. It's just hitting and getting hit, a feedback loop, a messy tangle of skinned knees and bloody knuckles, and then - maybe by mistake, or maybe he lets him win, maybe _this is winning_ \- however it happens, Gordon finds Benrey pinning him down. 

He's on top, straddling his waist, staring down with a fiery halo. "think you can come in your pants?" the bastard purrs. "I think you _can._ I think I can _make you."_

There's no fangs involved when he leans in to kiss him again. Nothing inhuman, no claws, no strangeness. Part of Gordon feels a little let down. The rest doesn't care, so long as he just keeps mouthing at that sensitive spot, oh _fuck,_ right there; so long as those blunt human fingernails drag through his hair just - oh, _just_ like that. Without realising, Gordon's got his hands involved. His prosthetic arm - the barrel of the machine gun - burrows hard into Benrey's gut, pointlessly trying to push him off. But Gordon's other hand - the left hand - has a fistful of the security guard's vest, gripping him behind one shoulder, uselessly trying to pull him closer.

This feels - nostalgic, familiar somehow - and then he realises. It feels exactly, almost _exactly_ like when he kills Benrey. The intimacy of it. The heat of his body, the smell of his sweat, the way his body moves. Isn't that strange? To know someone so well - all their physical tells, all the ways they react - from killing them _thousands of times?_ It's such a strange intimacy. So vivid. And he could kill him now, he's thrumming with the potential of it: he could, he could, he _could._

"Oh my god," he gasps, and it hitches halfway through, like a sob. "O-oh my _god."_

"huh? yeah?"

"Plea- _ase-"_

"what you beggin for, bro? you cryin?"

"Please, oh fuck me, please-"

"you gonna cry if I don't?" 

"N- _uh-_ no, I, oh _fuck-"_

Gordon bucks up against him, trying to throw him off, trying to get on top. But the other guy grinds down on him in just the right way - just - right there, oh _fuck_ \- and he groans. His whole body purrs and thrills. And so _of course_ Benrey does it again, the bastard, _of course_ he rolls into him until Freeman's gasping, helpless, trapped, until he turns his face to the side out of embarrassment. Hot. He's too hot. But it's no use, the other guy's leaning in too close, and that shadow - the electric dizzying heat, burning him through the suit - he won't, he won't, he's - _watching him hungrily, oh fuck, he can't look away,_ and then Benrey does it _again_ \- and it's like a thread being yanked on in his gut, something tightly wound and straining.

Gordon's got the machine gun pressed hard against the security guard's vest. He's got his other arm around Benrey's back with a fistful of his cotton shirt, crumpling it, pulling him closer. He wants, he wants, he's _aching_ for it, the tightly wound line running through him is on the _brink of snapping._ He's so fucking close. It'd just take one more thing, one tiny little thing, to push him over the edge.

Benrey grinds down hard. Freeman babbles, hips jerking. "Ohfuckohfu _ckohff-_ fuck me _please-“_

“since you askin so nicely,” he says, and licks him all the way up the side of his neck with the flat of his tongue, like a cat. He's trying for gross, probably. But Gordon's just so turned on right now that everything feels like the hottest fuckin thing on the planet, and he comes in his pants. He shakes right down to his core, right down to his bones, he shakes himself _apart_. And Benrey holds him through it. He pins him down. And he stares in heavy-lidded satisfaction, pupils blown out black and wide.

"A- _gh._ Shit. _Nnh."_

"nice."

"Shhhh. Shut up."

He watches him through the aftershocks too, the shivers up the back of his neck. Gordon feels the farthest thing from safe or secure. That's the draw, maybe. Like a rollercoaster, like something scary and terrifying and exhilarating. The dizzy headlessness. Adrenaline. It's the thrill of it.

He's coming down from the high now, though. "...Off me."

"huh?"

"Get off me."

"nah," Benrey says, and just to be an asshole, he lets himself drop onto Freeman's chest. The air leaves his lungs. "think we're gonna cuddle."

"Think the fuck again."

"shh. cuddle time. hugs and kisses."

"You're - _gh_ \- heavy, man. I hate you so, so much."

"sweet." Benrey turns his head lazily and plants a kiss right in the middle of his forehead, as if Gordon is being ridiculously sappy. "ditto, bro."

Gordon sighs, long and tired. His glasses are askew and sweaty. He can't be bothered to fix them. Or move.

After a while Benrey's breathing levels out, lax and slow. Freeman regards his sleeping body with - with faint surprise, actually. He's just so human. If it weren't for the, the whole _zombie_ thing, he could almost believe that he, he really is just _some guy._ Not a monster. Not anything particularly eldritch - except in the same way everybody is - in the same way that most people are a bit unfathomable, a bit incomprehensible. At his core? He isn't a god, or a villain, or any otherwise powerful dread entity.

At his core, Benrey is just some guy who likes to play video games. And whether he wins or not - doesn't matter so much, so long as he has fun.

Gordon pulls out his right arm - the machine gun - and puts it around Benrey in a half-hug. The cold concrete isn't comfortable, but it is - _soothing,_ in a way. Peaceful. And although it catches at the back of his HEV suit every time he shifts, although it's rough and uncomfortable, exhaustion does the work of the softest mattress.

* * *

Gordon never has that recurring nightmare again. No monsters, no mazes, thank god. The labyrinth is gone - and good riddance, it reminds him too much of Black Mesa. Those long cold corridors, the endlessly twisting rooms. Black Mesa is the maze. Benrey is the monster.

But right now Gordon dreams of something different! A _nice_ dream. A stress-free escape. A dream of the future, perhaps. One day after it's all over, maybe it'll be just him and the security guy chilling on a couch somewhere, and maybe they'll be _roommates_ for some reason? The room is dark and blue, and maybe they'll be playing some two-player Video Game, or something. Something with swords. It's a dream, it doesn't quite make sense, but then again it doesn't have to.

In the dream, Benrey looks across at Freeman. Bags under his eyes, haloed by the numinous glow of the television screen, with an eldritch shadow over his eyes like a silk blindfold. And with an air of satisfaction, like he is settling the matter, he says:

"your friends are eldritch, bro."

"What?"

"your friends are eldritch. dread entities. unfathomable. your all fundamentally fucked up. and you don't even know, you can't even telepath what they're _thinking_. humans like you do bad shit, man."

"Okay? I knew that though. What's your point?" Gordon asks, in the dream. "That uh - all humans suck?"

"wha-da-fuh? _no._ fuck off. what?" Benrey shrugs roughly. "it more like, you don't _know em,_ bro. you don't know. so you gotta believe the best of em, man, fucked up tho they might be." He turns to Freeman, stares him down across the couch, and in the dream he says, "polite and thank you. play nice? be good?"

And he turns back to the Video Game screen. His little pixel character jumps, swings down a heavenly sword, and cuts Gordon's character in half. The rest of the dream is just video games. It's just them chilling in a strange reality beyond Black Mesa, in the dim light of a screen, late at night. Chilling together on a ragged old couch, in their shared apartment, in this golden pocket heaven dimension. It could be a time-skip ahead, a couple of years down the line. It could be. It could be.

The future is built on dreams.

But _reality_ , in the end, is up to you. If you die in a game, do you die in real life? If you kill pixels for fun, will you become a murderer when you grow up? Do video games cause violence? It's up to you. At the end of the day it's just a game - just a dream - just play. It's just dumb shit. And it's fun to take it all too seriously, but at the end of the day? It hardly matters at all.

* * *

It could be the middle of the night when Gordon wakes up and heaves Benrey's comatose body off his chest. It could be the middle of the day. There's no way to tell in these backrooms, with the lights out, behind the scenes. But it _feels_ like the middle of the night, probably, when he gets up and goes over to the soda machines, money in hand. It's probably a bad idea to get a soda. But whatever, he has to drink at some point. The fact that there's no toilet in this room - that's a problem for future Gordon.

Whenever it happens, he wakes Benrey up.

"pepsin?"

"Huh?"

"pepsie please?"

Gordon peers blearily through the glass of the soda machine. There's no Pepsi left. It's just an empty slot, all the way to the back of the machine.

"No Pepsi, bro. You want Sunkist?"

"no! only _pepsie."_

"There's none left. It's _empty,_ man."

Benrey draws it out, whiny and pathetic. "pepise plea _aase?"_

Freeman is too tired to argue, and rolls his eyes. "Look. Look, I'll buy you a Pepsi? But nothing's gonna come out."

He puts in the number for a Sunkist - 010 - and the empty Pepsi slot - 017 - and he waits. The Sunkist comes through fine, the little spring rotating, the little spiral pushing it through until it drops into the slot below. Gordon bends over and fishes it out, and when he straightens, Benrey is there standing next to him. The other guy puts his nose up against the dark glass of the soda machine and breathes heavily, fogging it up, peering into the gloom. Gordon rolls his eyes again and pops the tab on the Sunkist.

"no pepis?"

"No Pepsi bro."

"then why'd you _buy me one,_ man, what the _fuck?_ dumb ass?"

Gordon sips his soda with a loud, irritating slurping noise, like a vacuum cleaner trying to suck up mud. Just a little payback.

"yo don't drink that," the security guy says, idly.

Gordon shlurps it loudly.

"no toilet, bro. you gonna hafta piss every where."

"I'll piss in a bottle or something, lay off man. How's your Pepsi?"

"no pepis!"

Gordon snickers. "I warned you there was no Pepsi. Bro, I told you."

Benrey stares forlornly into the empty glass. The sound of moving mechanical parts comes from deep within. Deeper than the machine, actually, it's coming from inside the wall. The soda machine is thinking about it. It's taking its time. And then the whole metal box creaks, and groans, and the hidden hinges activate: and the whole rattling soda machine-

 _-swings open like a door_ , revealing a secret passage in the wall behind.

It's a long dark concrete corridor. It goes on and on into the depths of the facility, twisting and turning, running on out of sight. Gordon drops the Sunkist. It rolls around unheeded between their feet, pouring out a pool of orange soda all over their shoes. Neither of them steps away. Neither of them moves. They just stand there, staring, side-by-side in shock.

Gordon licks his lips. "Pepsi, huh? That was the - that was the password?"

"oh _yo_ bro, that explains _every_ thing."

"Does it?"

"yeah, we beat the puzzle, woo! we're _free, man."_

Freeman doesn't move. A part of him - a big part - doesn't actually want to escape. The inside of the secret tunnel looks too much like a maze, too much like a labyrinth. It looks, in fact, exactly like a lab-rat's worst nightmare.

Which is when Benrey leans sideways, and takes his hand.

They stand holding hands for a while there, staring down the abyss. A cold breeze ruffles Gordon's hair. It smells like the rest of the facility - like concrete powder, like the cold and the damp - familiar and nostalgic. Benrey turns around and fumbles at the table for a second. He comes back with the ball of thread, and the blacklight torch. He gives the thread to Gordon so he can unravel it behind him, like in the old myths, so they can find their way back if they need to. And Benrey himself? He takes the blacklight torch and shines it inside, revealing a secret arrow on the floor marking the path forward, marking a way through the labyrinth.

Between them, Gordon clutches hard at the other guy's hand. Painfully hard. Harder than a human could take, probably, grinding all the bones together.

But Benrey just looks up at him with the darkness in his face, and gives him that nameless hungry look again, and leans in for a quick peck. Gordon's eyes flutter closed behind his glasses. His eyebrows knit, and he turns his head to meet Benrey halfway. There's a barb in his heart, a strange tug, a pulling. It's painful but sweet, and he gets it now: why they call it 'heartache'.

Gordon breaks the silence. "Can't we play another round of - uh - tic-tac-toe, first?"

Benrey antagonises him into action. "you scared? lil chicken?"

"Fuck off. No, you're right. You're right. Let's go. I bet the scientists are waiting for us."

"showtime bro."

And hand in hand, gripping hard enough to hurt, they walk together into the dark.

> [ _Say our love is a flame, not an ember, _ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TytGOeiW0aE&ab_channel=TheTomLehrerWisdomChannel)
> 
> [ _Say it's me that you want to dismember. _ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TytGOeiW0aE&ab_channel=TheTomLehrerWisdomChannel)
> 
> [ _Blacken my eye, _ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TytGOeiW0aE&ab_channel=TheTomLehrerWisdomChannel)
> 
> [ _Set fire to my tie, _ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TytGOeiW0aE&ab_channel=TheTomLehrerWisdomChannel)
> 
> _[ As we dance to the Masochism Tango.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TytGOeiW0aE&ab_channel=TheTomLehrerWisdomChannel) _

**Author's Note:**

> aha!! this was a tic-tac-toe shonen all along!! just fyi, the formatting works better on mobile - i figured that's where most ppl read fic, so that's what i prioritised. 
> 
> hope you enjoyed!! thank u everybody who left comments/kudos. also, here is a little cat
> 
> /\\___/\  
>  ( ^ . ^ )  
> ( n )  
> ( u )))))))))))


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